ought him of
following its guidance, in the hope that it might lead him to the river
where the hunters were now encamped. With toilsome steps he followed the
infant stream, now lost beneath the decaying masses of fallen trunks or
the impervious intricacies of matted "windfalls," now stealing through
swampy thickets or gurgling in the shade of rocks, till it entered at
length, not into the river, but into a small lake. Circling around
the brink, he found the point where the brook ran out and resumed its
course. Listening in the dead stillness of the woods, a dull, hoarse
sound rose upon his ear. He went forward, listened again, and could
plainly hear the plunge of waters. There was light in the forest before
him, and, thrusting himself through the entanglement of bushes, he stood
on the edge of a meadow. Wild animals were here of various kinds; some
skulking in the bordering thickets, some browsing on the dry and matted
grass. On his right rolled the river, wide and turbulent, and along its
bank he saw the portage path by which the Indians passed the neighboring
rapids. He gazed about him. The rocky hills seemed familiar to his eye.
A clew was found at last; and, kindling his evening fire, with grateful
heart he broke a long fast on the game he had killed. With the break of
day he descended at his ease along the bank, and soon descried the smoke
of the Indian fires curling in the heavy morning air against the gray
borders of the forest. The joy was great on both sides. The Indians
had searched for him without ceasing; and from that day forth his host,
Durantal, would never let him go into the forest alone.

They were thirty-eight days encamped on this nameless river, and killed
in that time a hundred and twenty deer. Hard frosts were needful to give
them passage over the land of lakes and marshes that lay between them
and the Huron towns. Therefore they lay waiting till the fourth of
December; when the frost came, bridged the lakes and streams, and made
the oozy marsh as firm as granite. Snow followed, powdering the broad
wastes with dreary white. Then they broke up their camp, packed their
game on sledges or on their shoulders, tied on their snowshoes, and
began their march. Champlain could scarcely endure his load, though some
of the Indians carried a weight fivefold greater. At night, they heard
the cleaving ice uttering its strange groans of torment, and on the
morrow there came a thaw. For four days they waded throug